A 6-year-old boy walking to school with his mother in New Jersey has been attacked by a raccoon which mauled the child and left deep wounds in his face, according to police and eyewitnesses. Police have the raccoon’s carcass and have ordered rabies tests due back Friday. Raccoon behaviour across Canada is of concern since the discovery of rabid raccoons in Hamilton. The Ontario government is on an aggressive program of feeding bait to raccoons to immunize them. According to witnesses, including the boy’s mother, the raccoon made a direct run at the boy as he and his mother walked to school. A witness told police the animal ran across the street, jumped on the boy’s back and crawled onto his face Wednesday morning. Police Chief Michael Foligno told local media a man ran over and grabbed the raccoon before beating the animal to death with a stick.
GOOD SAMARITAN
Shannon Lampert made a 911 call after seeing the disturbing attack. “The boy was bleeding,” she said. “It looked like it bit under his eye and bit the side of his face. I just called police.” Danny Walls, a good Samaritan who was driving by, jumped into action. “I’m coming around the corner from the gas station, I see this lady acting really hysterical,” he said. “She’s jumping around, she’s like ‘somebody help me, somebody help me.’ I thought she was crazy because I didn’t see anything, snow was piled all the way up. When I kinda drove up, maybe about five or six feet away from her, I seen this huge raccoon on top of the kid, and I could see his red jacket.” Walls exited the car with a fiberglass painter’s pole and began to strike the raccoon until it released its grip on the child.